September 2012 MMA News Archive - Page 3

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Michael "The Count" Bisping isn't much of a happy camper these days.
Since making his UFC debut back in 2006 against Josh Haynes at light-heavyweight, Bisping has been trying to wrap his arms around UFC gold, but the belt keeps eluding him.
The former Ultimate Fighter (TUF) season 2 winner even changed weight classes to improve his title shot chances after a heart breaking defeat to Rashad Evans at UFC 78.
Bisping made his middleweight debut at UFC 83 against Charles McCarthy, and since then the UFC veteran has gone 8-3, however, he is still waiting for a chance to prove himself against a UFC champion.
Bisping often finds himself wondering how someone with his stellar UFC record and a veteran of 16 UFC fights could have somehow slipped through the cracks and not gotten a shot at UFC glory?

It has been a bumpy ride outside of the Octagon in 2012 for UFC light heavyweight champion Jon Jones. Come fight night, however, the man known as “Bones” always delivers the goods. When he squares off with Vitor Belfort, Jones will look to erase at least some of the ill will generated by the UFC 151 cancellation by doing what he does best: providing high-quality violence.
Jones checked in at 204.6 pounds for his five-round title defense against Belfort (204.2) in the UFC 152 headliner on Saturday at the Air Canada Centre in Toronto. The eight other fighters slated for main card duty, including flyweight championship hopefuls Joseph Benavidez (124.4) and Demetrious Johnson (125), also met their contracted weight requirements at Friday’s official weigh-in at the Mattamy Athletic Centre.

After years of dominating the UFC middleweight division, champ Anderson Silva doesn’t seem to have the interest in continually proving to be the king of the 185 pounders. During a recent interview with Guilherme Cruz of Tatame Magazine, Silva started off on the topic of Chris Weidman’s denial of a title fight in 2012; then veering off into talks of vacating the title in order to take on new challenges. Superfight anyone?
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Does that mean Boetsch/Wiedman would be for the title?

The upstart promotion World Series of Fighting continues to add to their roster as they prepare for the curtain raising card on November 3rd. Having won his last 4 fights, 3 by way of submission, former Strikeforce lightweight Lyle Beerbohm signed with WSOF. MMA Junkie has the details:
After a two-fight skid in Strikeforce, Lyle Beerbohm has gone on a 4-0 run in 2012 that now has him a deal with the World Series of Fighting.
Beerbohm (19-2) has signed a multi-fight deal with the new promotion and is expected to have his first bout announced soon. Beerbohm's management team recently announced the signing.

As of two days ago Frank Mir became the latest Zuffa fighter to suffer an injury, the Strikeforce superfight between him and Daniel Cormier was off the cards. There's no replacement yet, but Fabricio Werdum has put his hat in the ring as a potential challenger for the SF Grand Prix winner. Yesterday, former UFC heavyweight champion and Strikeforce fighter Andrei Arlovski also offered to step in on short notice. MMA Fighting has the info:
"I'm getting a lot of tweets about fighting (Daniel Cormier)," former UFC heavyweight champion Andrei Arlovski tweeted yesterday. "And if the fans want to see it, I'm sure we can make it happen!"
Arlovski eventually deleted his initial tweet, however his timeline quickly became inundated with a flood of retweets and quotes from fans calling for "The Pitbull" to return to his old Strikeforce stomping grounds.

he main card is set for December's UFC on FOX 5 event, which features a championship headliner between lightweight titleholder Benson Henderson (17-2 MMA, 5-0 UFC) and challenger Nate Diaz (16-7 MMA, 11-5 UFC).
The event takes place Dec. 8 at Seattle's KeyArena, and tickets go on sale Oct. 5.
UFC on FOX 5 is the final FOX-televised event of 2012, and the main card features four fights in all.

Joseph Benavidez and Demetrious Johnson are so very similar that it just makes sense they'll meet this Saturday at UFC 152 in Toronto for the opportunity to become the organization's first flyweight champion.
"They both have a championship spirit, so neither will stop whether they're winning or losing," UFC bantamweight champion Dominick Cruz said. "They're just going to go. Pedal to the metal. If there's no finish, they'll go until the bell rings. It's going to be insane to watch that pace."

Vitor Belfort is the longest-tenured UFC fighter, an ante-Zuffaian heirloom who was Jon Jones long before there was a Jon Jones. If he’s distinguished, it’s because he’s learned to adapt within the meanest landscape in sports.
Now 35, he’s facing the Jon Jones of today -- the Jon Jones. Jones, the invulnerable. Jones, the colossus of the light heavyweight division, a division that Belfort hasn’t fought in since 2007. It’s a legit old-meets-new with a sense of “martyrdom” underwriting it all. To go by the specs, Jones -- at 25 years old -- is the new “phenom.” Belfort, in his twilight, is the new “unenviable.”

And the fighter prays. Vitor Belfort, UFC middleweight, cinches the prayer circle with his dangerous hands. Wife, children, cousin, pastor, reporter. It is nighttime in Rio de Janeiro, July, behind the secure gates of a Barra da Tijuca development, far from the events that have disordered the fighter's life into the shades of scattered memory. "Jesus, we love you," he says.
On Saturday, Sept. 22, in Toronto, Belfort will fight Jon Jones, the UFC light heavyweight champion. Belfort was a champion, a name of the '90s, relying on the knockout, his hands landing faster than any opponent could interpret them, scattering memory in his own way. Belfort is 35 years old now, a long shot.

Frank Mir (16-6 MMA, 14-6 UFC) will not fight Daniel Cormier (10-0 MMA, 7-0 SF), as it turns out.
An undisclosed injury has forced the ex-UFC champ to withdraw from "Strikeforce: Cormier vs. Mir," which takes place Nov. 3 at Chesapeake Energy Center in Oklahoma City, Okla., and airs live on Showtime and Showtime Extreme.
MMAjunkie.com (mmajunkie.com) confirmed the news on Tuesday night with a source close to the promotion following an initial report from news show Sports Rage. It's unknown whether a replacement for Mir has been found.
Sorry to be the bearer of bad news guys. I think Mir realises its a lose/lose for him
Frank Mir gives me Frank Mir face

Things could get a little chilly in the locker rooms at UFC 152 – at least if Michael Bisping and Joseph Benavidez are sharing space.
Putting it mildly, Bisping didn't appreciate the UFC flyweight's off-the-cuff remark that he was a harder puncher.
"That smug-faced little t--- in a prepubescent boy's body needs to shut the f--- up because I'll take the Pepsi Challenge with that short-ass any day of the week," Bisping told MMAjunkie.com Radio (www.mmajunkie.com/radio).
Benavidez made his claim at the end of a recent video blog shot for the UFC. While watching a promo for UFC 152, his longtime training partner Urijah Faber asks him if he hits harder than "The Count."
"Yes, I hit harder than Bisping," Benavidez answers.

As you would expect from the head of a billion-dollar business, Ultimate Fighting Championship CEO Lorenzo Fertitta does not take the future of his Las Vegas-based company for granted, and each decision that impacts his promotion is carefully considered while utilizing vast amounts of data, market research and historical perspective.
Of course, every now and then choices boil down to little more than a gut decision, or at least a decision dictated by the gut.
"It was kind of funny, because we do a lot of analysis and we're running numbers and doing all kinds of different things, and we said, 'Sometimes you just have to go literally by gut feel.
"I'm a huge fan of Guy Fieri's show, Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives, and I had actually downloaded the app on my iPhone. I said, 'You know what we're going to do? I'm going to go on my app right now, and whichever city has more Guy Fieri locations, that's where we're going to do the fight.' That's literally how it came down."

Michael McDonald won’t be 22 years old until January. There’s a chance -- if the cards fall in his favor, and his hand is healthy enough to chin-hunt, and UFC matchmakers throw him a bone -- that by the time “Mayday’s” birthday rolls around, he’ll be accessorizing with UFC gold.
It’s a lot of “ifs,” and a few asterisks -- but it’s possible, and the scenario isn’t all that hard to fathom.
Jon Jones was 23 years and 8 months old when he defeated Mauricio Rua for the light heavyweight belt. If Mayday gets a fight with bantamweight interim titleholder Renan Barao in December -- which is the month McDonald has circled for his return -- he could usurp Jones’ feat of becoming the youngest fighter to be a UFC champion. By a full year and a half, no less.
Yeah, yeah -- even if it’s a placeholder belt that is mostly illusion, while the genuine article remains off-limits until Dominick Cruz returns from his ACL injury.
But first things first. The only jones McDonald is dealing with is the one to crush a heavy bag without wincing.

With the premiere episode of TUF: Australia vs. UK “The Smashes” right around the corner, the UFC on Monday announced that the Gold Coast Convention and Exhibition Centre in Broadbeach, Queensland, Australia, would host UFC on FX 6, which features TUF: The Smashes finale on Dec. 15 (Dec. 14 in the U.S.).
The main event will be a fight between the TUF: The Smashes coaches. Australia’s George Sotiropoulos and the U.K.’s Ross Pearson will meet in the lightweight division. The main card also features the fight between adopted Aussie Hector Lombard and submission specialist Rousimar “Toquinho” Palhares, as well as the TUF lightweight and welterweight finals.

According to sources close to the event, Zorobabel Moreira will square off against Kotetsu Boku for the promotion’s inaugural 155-pound belt at One FC 6 “Rise of Kings,” which takes place at Singapore Outdoor Stadium in Singapore. The card is also expected to include a lightweight bout between former Dream titlist Shinya Aoki and Frenchman Arnaud Lepont.
A Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt, Moreira is unbeaten in three appearances under the One FC banner. The Singapore-based Brazilian debuted with the promotion last year, defeating “The Ultimate Fighter” veteran Andy Wang via TKO. “Zoro” continued his momentum through 2012, submitting Felipe Enomoto with an armbar on March 31 before knocking out Roger Huerta with a soccer kick at One FC 4 in June.

The season debut of "The Ultimate Fighter: Australia vs UK," which has also been dubbed "TUF: TheSmashes," will be available worldwide beginning this Thursday.
While FX holds the TV rights in Australia, and ESPN holds the rights in the U.K., the rest of the world can watch the show online.
A number of online outlets will make each episode of the competition-reality series available beginning Thursdays at 10 p.m. ET (7 p.m. PT).

LAS VEGAS – Four-time Strikeforce veteran Derek Brunson, UFC veterans Nissen Osterneck and Jay Silva, and six-time WEC veteran Marcus Hicks were among more than 120 middleweight and light-heavyweight hopefuls who attended Monday's open tryout session for "The Ultimate Fighter 17."
The prospective cast members gathered at the Fertitta family-owned Palace Station Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas.
The tryouts started out with a bang – literally – as light-heavyweight hopefuls Diman Morris and Dan Charles went crashing through a folding table during their two-minute grappling session.
The pair was just the second set of fighters to step before UFC matchmakers Joe Silva and Sean Shelby for evaluation. Fortunately, neither fighter was injured, and cooler heads prevailed throughout the remainder of the day.

A New Jersey-based trainer pleaded guilty today to falsifying medical paperwork so his fighters could fight without undergoing pre-bout physicals.
The state attorney general office will recommend 49-year-old Mahwah, N.J. resident Philip Dunlap be sentenced to probation, 200 hours of community service and a $5,000 fine.
"The sport is criticized enough, and young enough where it's still trying to grow," New Jersey State Athletic Control Board legal counsel Nick Lembo today told MMAjunkie.com (www.mmajunkie.com). "We don't need somebody getting hurt ... off of fake medicals."
Dunlap, who trains fighters out of Advanced Fighting Systems in Mahwah, agreed to a plea deal in connection with a third-degree felony charge of tampering with public records or information. He is scheduled to be sentenced on Oct. 26.

The Ultimate Fighter 16: Team Carwin vs. Team Nelson season premier TV ratings are in, notching this season’s first episode at 947,000 viewers on FX.
MMAWeekly.com confirmed the ratings with industry sources.
Friday night’s episode marked the lowest premiere in TUF history.